Wishcasting The End Of The World

Mr. William Briggs has put together very nicely some current events along with the global warming screeching and political pandering ... and shows it for that which it truly is ... nonsense.

William M. Briggs

Wishcasting is when a forecast or prediction is shaded in the direction the forecaster or predictor wants the event to happen. For example, if you forecast this weekend’s weather, you might be inclined to discount evidence that it will rain. Similarly, if you predict which team will win tonight’s game—your home or the away team—you might exaggerate your team’s chances. End of the World

The potential for wishcasting is stronger the more interest the forecaster has in the outcome. Observe any gambler to see whether this is true. Wishcasting can be eliminated, but only by approaching uncertainty with a kind of Buddhist calm. This state is difficult to attain and even more difficult to retain.

All of us are interested in the future of humanity, many of us intensely so. This is one of the reasons why making guesses of what will happen is so difficult. We badly want events to turn out this way or that, and depending whether we’re naturally gloomy or bright, we misestimate the odds of the event turning out against us or in our favor.

Thus it must be for Harold Camping and Robert Fitzpatrick, who Fox News reports is a “a 60-year-old Staten Island resident” who “spent his entire $140,000 life savings advertising his prediction that the world will end May 21.”

Camping and Fitzpatrick belong to Family Radio Worldwide, a group which not only broadcasts its predictions, but has bought (or rented?) a fleet of buses which carry signs announcing that May 21st is it.

The followers of Camping are gloomy. They have heard of wars and rumors of wars, which they have interpreted as a sign that the end is nigh. But they have forgotten or given little weight to the warning that these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

I say they formed their prediction in such dark terms because these men want the end to come. Why? ....

You will want to go read it all!

OK, the 21st is the end of it all. That is this coming Saturday. We'll see. :-)

xtnyoda, shalomed